Now in their eleventh year, the Sustainable & ESG Investment Awards offer an opportunity to showcase expertise and commitment to investment factors that take into account environmental, social and ethical criteria as well as good corporate behaviour.

Despite the underperformance of fixed income we discuss in this Spotlight guide why the value proposition of the asset class hasn't gone away. In particular we review how the RLAM management team use existing, proven funds to actively manage consistent monthly income streams and adapt the portfolio to changing interest rate and credit market factors.

Within this guide, you will find some surprising survey results from FE, a selection of adviser opinions and some Architas views too. We hope this guide will provide you with some food for thought on this burning issue.

Funds set to be made more widely available in the UK include the $6.7bn JPM Income Opportunity fund, an absolute return vehicle managed by Bill Eigen, as well as a pair of emerging market debt funds: the $3.6bn Emerging Market Debt Local Currency fund and the $1.2bn Emerging Market Debt fund, both run by Pierre-Yves Bareau and Didier Lambert.

JPMAM’s head of UK retail Jasper Berens (pictured) said it is essential the group bolsters its UK fixed income range in order to grow the business in to ‘a top three player’ in the UK asset management space over the next five years.

“In the unit trust space we are nineteenth in terms of assets, but we are top ten overall if you include investment trusts and SICAVs,” he said.

“We have various options including launching OIECs, but we also have to work better with our platform partners so they can understand putting SICAVs on platforms would be a good idea.”

The group also plans to scale up its UK equity and mixed asset ranges, Berens added.